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The slam of the door resonated through your home. The grocery bag dropped right next to your feet.
You could not think, you could not feel.
It was like a hit of frozen wind in your home in the summer Tokyo city.
“There are papers on the counter,” he said.
The papers shined a brighter white than normal. The inked signature of his at the bottom of the paper dried like a permanent scar.
You could not believe it.
Why?
Why?
WHY?
You turned to panic. You dropped to a crouch position, hugging your knees as your breath became shallow. Tears stung your eyes as you tried to calm down.
This was not what you wanted. If anything, you would have given an apology.
You would have given him an apology, for this to disappear. For it to pass, for it to be never found.
“All I want is love that lasts.”
A few days before you freaked out. You knew Suna had a game, but you still panicked out. You cried in fear so much about not coming home to him. It made you so mad to like this.
To be so insecure, so easily swayed.
So burdensome.
You pulled yourself together after you called him at 5 PM and he soothed you down.
“I found a guy, told me I was a star.”
Suna and you entered highschool together and you were his desk mate for all years of highschool. He started off as tired looking and lazy. He would lay his head on the desk all during class and pass still. Eventually, you two had become close, and you became the manager of his volleyball team.
He learned about your insecurities and everything that made you feel scared.
“You are wonderful, y/n,” he said, the day he found you crying by the gym as you overthinked about your help to their team.
“He held the door, held my hand in the dark.”
As you had your depressive state in your 3rd year due to university and family stress, Suna was there to keep you eating. Feeding you chuupet and small snacks. Taking your notes in class, he looked at your sleeping face on the desk under the morning sun.
It was where he started to like you.
Your face seemed so at peace and he wanted to protect it. Even after you recovered, Suna explicitly showed affection to you in the same way. With either small snacks, small gifts, or surprises, he did them to see your beautiful smile. The smile he has grown to love so deeply.
Until now.
“And he's perfect on paper, but he's lying to my face.”
You loved him for the past 9 years. He told you his feelings in your first year of university, and now, you were both 27 and married.
For the past few months, he came home late, everyday.
He would come home extremely tired and grumbly. You tried your best to comfort him, in all ways you could as his wife, but it did not work.
As time progressed, you grew weary. He started to stay on his phone during dinner all the time.
You did not want to doubt him, you could not.
Because you loved him.
And you continued to do so, even after a text popped up on his phone, months before.
“Go wash up, Rin.”
Suna hummed out a yes and headed towards the shower and you laid in your bed, reading a book. Your tea, hot and steamy, placed on a coaster on the end table beside you.
You aimlessly reach for the tea cup, accidentally sticking your finger into the hot tea and burning yourself.
It catches you off guard and you drop the book out of your hand. You turn your attention to your finger, clutching it as it steamed off a bit and turned red.
You sigh and shuffle to the bathroom and open the door to run cold water on your finger.
“Are you ok?”
You hear Suna ask as he sees you enter.
“Just burned myself with the tea.”
“Be careful, you are always so clumsy.”
“Yes, yes, hurry up and finish showering Rin.”
You walk out and pick up your tea to take a sip, and as you place it down, a message on Suna’s phone pops up.
From a woman that you had no idea about.
You would have brushed it off because you trusted him, but 5 more messages popped up with a photo from the woman, so you decided to look at it.
‘He wouldn’t mind, right? I mean, he is my husband.’
You unlocked his phone, and lo and behold.
You set the phone down so fast, and picked up your book, settling into your bed sheets as Suna walked out of the bathroom door.
“Your fingers ok?”
“Yup, all good.”
“You can shower now.”
“Alright, and.”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“You still love me right?”
Suna’s body froze as your back was to him because you were heading for the bathroom as he sat on the edge of the bed.
“Of course,” he replied, getting up and heading to your figure, hugging your back, “I have always loved you and only you, you know it.”
You smiled, of course, it was only you and always you. Ever since that day in university, to the day you shared your vows, to this moment, always you.
“I love you too, Rin.”
He kisses the back of your head and lets you go shower.
The warm water ran through your hair and body. You wanted to slap him, for lying to you. Wanted to be mad, wanted to scream, but you couldn’t.
Those texts on the screen made him a liar.
The photos that woman sent and her ‘I love you’s to Suna.
A liar he was.
What hurt the most was that he shared your once singley owned phrase to her too.
‘I love you’
From then, you acted the same, and he acted no different. Suna was still attached to the phone. You even saw that same woman’s name pop up on the phone many times, but you brushed them off. Any time he came home late, you spent the time crying in confusion until he came home to see your figure peacefully sleeping.
Or he thought.
Back then, you had wanted to move forward with your relationship. You have been married for about 3 years, and your parents were practically begging for a grandchild, and so were Suna’s. You were delighted to fulfill their wishes, and honestly wanted one of your own. You believed Suna would have agreed to it too.
But when you brought it up last month, after getting your implants removed the month prior, his reaction was far from expected.
“What?”
“What do you mean, ‘What’, Rin? I said, we should have a child, we are both in a-”
“No.”
“But.”
“I said, no.”
“Why? Can’t you hear me out first, our parents have been asking, and I-”
“You? You want one as well?”
You look down at your lap with your hands balled in a fist.
“Yes,” you mumbled out.
Suna sighed and stood up, he grabbed his keys and left. You heard the car leave as your tears fell.
You were not mad at him for saying no, but he was so jumpy and adamant on it, it scared you. Usually, he would have listened and probably would have agreed right there and swooped you off your feet to get to it, but he was mad at you.
That night your back faced his figure. It was until he crawled to hug you and apologize, saying that he did not want them right now since his team was not as stable.
You forgave him then, you really wished you had not.
“Are my expectations far too high?”
Now you were here, panicking on your home floor.
Divorce papers a few feet above you on the kitchen counter, his name inked on the signature line. The pen beside the papers, waiting for your hand to use the dark ink in them.
“I am sorry, y/n.”
“Hm?”
You looked up curiously from the sink, as you washed dishes, his figure standing at the hallway entrance in outing clothes.
“Where are you going?”
“I am cheating on you.”
The plate in your hand dropped into the sink with a thud. His hand clenched, which was not unnoticed by you.
You knew about it, yet you acted like you were so hurt, when in reality, you were hurt a long time ago.
“You’re kidding right?”
Silence.
The silence that held a million words. The millions of words that said, ‘No, he is not kidding.’
“Rin?”
He looked up at your shaken image, like a cracked glass, trying to not fully break. It was his fault, yet it stabbed him and he felt so bad.
He did not love you anymore.
“Do you still love me,” you asked.
He stared daggers into you, as he tried to form his answer.
Instead, you washed your hands, and quietly walked past him. He caught your wrist.
“Let go.”
He held on.
“Let. Go. Rin.”
He followed your words.
“I am sorry,” he said.
Your head dropped, tears following.
“It’s alright,” you whispered, “It’s alright if you don’t love me, but I still love you, so don’t leave me, please.”
With that you walked to your shared room and shut the door, leaving Suna’s body, frozen cold with your request.
“Try my best, but what can I say?”
After that night, 3 weeks ago, you clung to him, afraid. Maybe this was why he decided with these papers, that it was enough.
You were a burden to him.
Bothersome.
You wanted nothing more just to stay by his side, even if it hurt you.
“All I have is myself at the end of the day. But shouldn't that be enough for me?”
It was cold that night, without him.
The papers sat on the kitchen counter, empty of your signature. Your pillow soaked with tears. You could not sleep as your mind ran marathons.
“Now happy ever after, it doesn't come so easily.”
He was probably out with that woman, as you laid here.
The 100 messages on your phone from family and friends were left unread.
“Rin!!”
“Hm?”
“You are very cute,” you laugh out, pinching at his cheeks.
“Stop that.”
“Fine.”
He then hugs you.
“Uhm? Rin?”
“Let’s stay like this.”
“Ok.”
“Forever.”
“What?”
He pulls his face out from your shoulder and looks at you.
“I want to be with you forever.”
Your heart leaped with adrenaline. The serotonin filling your system, as you kissed him.
“Then, let’s do that.”
Your eyes squeezed out more tears the next morning as you shakily held the pen to your hand.
Forever
A broken promise.
An empty promise about 4 years ago, was given to you.
Oh, how you wanted to stay, yet you could not, and you had to leave.
The only way to do so, was through this though.
To detach yourself from this pain and happiness. To leave him, the man who loved you for the past 9 years only to throw it all away.
“ All I want is love that lasts. Is all I want too much to ask?”
You believed, it was not meant to be. You asked too much from this world, to allow you to love him and for him to love you.
You planned your future with him.
Yet, it has been shredded in front of your eyes, like paper through a shredder.
Pieces of the life you wanted to see have been destroyed as you hastily try to save them.
But, you were not fast enough.
Looking at the boxes in front of you now, they were the pieces of you that still had been together.
The house, emptied of your things over the span of 2 days with the help of your parents.
They were heartbroken upon your news and they rushed over to see you. Greeted with a crying child of theirs, they were torn, but they could not do much, because your request was to not be mad at Rin, to let him be, because you were not the one he loved anymore.
“All I have is myself at the end of the day.”
“y/n.”
You turn to your dad.
“Let’s go sweetie.”
You look back at the place you called home for the past 3 years.
The place you fell in more love.
The place you slept, ate, and made home.
The place with the love of your life.
A sad smile broke across our face. Your tears are dripping slowly.
The only piece of you in there, was now a disowned ring, and a signature.
A signature inked on paper, next to Suna’s. A signature that told you to leave this behind, for it will only be a past memory, because now, it was something you wanted, but you could not have.
All you wanted was to stay loved and stay loving him.
But the world is not so lenient, so you agreed to fate.
With your life of love behind you, it tore you to shreds, to have the warmth you used to have was something you dearly begged for.
The emptiness of your childhood room tonight was so cold and silent.
No light snoring of the man you loved and still do, no scent of his, no warm arms wrapped around you.
Only the glow of the moon and the dense silence of the night.
The silence ate you up, and the tears never stopped.
It was just you.
You.
You, to support yourself now, alone in a sunless world that you used to have.
“And all I want is for that to be okay.”